Janice Johnson - Cop by Her Side

She rose to her feet in a single jerky motion. “Have you found—?” The answer must have been apparent on his face, because she dropped back down as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry.” He took the chair next to her and reached for her hand. It felt so small, too delicate to hold a heavy handgun, never mind to fire it. To kill.

Damn it. If he couldn’t get past thinking things like that— Oh, who was he kidding? He’d had his chance and blown it. And...did he want to change his thinking so drastically?

Yeah. For Jane, he did.

“Any word on your sister?” he asked.

Her eyes, puffy and desperate, never left his. Her hand held tight to his, too. “There’s no change. They’re letting Drew sit with her. Every so often he comes out to give me a report, or...or he takes a break and I go in. They’re calling it a coma now, Clay. They drilled a hole in her skull to relieve the pressure. The doctor isn’t saying what he thinks the prognosis is. Or else he told Drew, who is lying to me.”

“She’s your only family.”

“Her and the kids.” Her shoulders moved a little. “And Drew.”

“Damn, Jane.” He cleared his throat. “I wish you weren’t having to go through this.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she blinked furiously, not letting them fall. “Shit happens, right? Who knows that better than we do?”

He couldn’t argue.

“Where’s Bree?”

The way she looked at him, as if he was capable of miracles, made his sinuses burn. Produce the kid and redeem himself.

He’d give damn near anything to be up to this particular miracle.

“I don’t like what I’m thinking,” he said gruffly. He couldn’t lie to her. Jane wasn’t most women. She was tough. He knew that. “Did Sergeant Baldwin tell you Melissa’s cell phone is missing?”

“He says it might have been destroyed.”

Clay’s thumb circled on the back of her hand. “Yeah. And we both know that’s not good.”

Her head bobbed. Either she hadn’t noticed they were still holding hands or she needed the contact too much to let go no matter how much she detested him.

“The phone at your sister’s place hasn’t rang once. Home phone numbers are on those lists handed out by the day camp and the school, so we know the odds are any of her friends’ parents would have it, not just Melissa’s cell number.

“We’ve got an Amber Alert up,” he told her. “That may or may not lead to FBI involvement. At this point, with no unexpected dents or scrapes on the vehicle, we don’t have any evidence to suggest your sister was forced off the road. It’s still entirely possible Brianna is with a friend, and has maybe spent the night before so the mom or dad figures Melissa had some crisis but will call tomorrow.”

Despite the fear in her eyes, a tiny hint of hope sparked. “It is possible, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He wished he believed it, but didn’t see how it would hurt if she did, at least for a little while.

“Okay.” She ducked her head suddenly, probably to hide tears. “Thank you.”

He bent over her and kissed the top of her head, letting himself inhale the scent that was uniquely Jane. For a moment she seemed to sway toward him, as if she was going to let herself lean, but then she squared her shoulders and straightened, tugging her hand free at the same time.

“You probably have things you need to be doing—”

“I wanted to talk to you some more, and then to your brother-in-law.”

She visibly armored up. “To me?” she said, polite but surprised.

“Yeah. You. You know your sister. You know your niece.”

A cautious nod.

“I expected Drew to have a better idea who his daughter’s best friends are.”

Tiny lines puckered that high forehead. “I think that’s because Bree’s two best friends are both gone. The summer hasn’t been a very good one for her.”

“Gone,” Clay echoed. It had to be a reflection of his job that he equated gone with dead.

“Moved. Well, Poppy’s family moved, and to Texas, no less, which means no visits. They’d been friends since preschool. And then Bree’s other best friend, Schuyler, was in a foster home, but Lissa said the courts finally terminated the mother’s parental rights and they’re trying Schuyler in a potential adoptive home. Which unfortunately is in... I forget. Bend or someplace. Close enough for sleepovers, but not to be in the same school, which means they’ll forget each other by October, probably.”

“Sleepovers,” he repeated.

Her hope brightened. “Schuyler would have been on that class list, but the phone number would have been for the foster parents who don’t have her anymore. It could have been impulsive....”

He was already shaking his head, even though he hated to dim the light in her eyes. “I’ll check. You can count on that. But if your sister was going to take Brianna to a friend’s house, why wouldn’t she have stopped at home first to let her pack a bag? Plus, it doesn’t explain why the accident happened where it did.”

Her shoulders sagged. “You’re right.” Then she cried, “Oh, why doesn’t she wake up and tell us what happened?”

She sounded as if she was angry at her sister, which might be natural, or might not.

“Melissa,” he said, pursuing the thought. “The two of you close?”

Jane’s gaze slid from his in what he recognized as evasion. “Yes.” She hesitated. “I mean, we have our moments. Don’t most siblings?”

“Sure,” Clay said easily. “My brother and I beat the crap out of each other every now and again just for the hell of it.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “I can safely say that Lissa and I never get violent. We just, um, have stretches where we don’t talk very often. You know.”

No, he didn’t, but he wanted to. “What about lately? Have you been talking? Would you know if anything was going on with her?”

“Anything?”

“Say, trouble with her husband.”

Some anger fired up on her face. “The husband who is in ICU right now holding her hand and praying for all he’s worth?”

“Two people can fight and still care about each other.”

“But you’re suggesting something a lot worse than fighting.”

Yeah, now that she mentioned it, he was. He couldn’t help thinking of a couple of moments where something had been really off with Drew Wilson. It was a gut feeling more than anything else, but Clay trusted his gut.

“I’m trying to get a complete picture, that’s all. You’d be doing the same if you were in my shoes.”

She slanted a suddenly suspicious look at him. “Why were you at the accident site so early on? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Clay shook his head. “Nothing like that.”

“Then why?”

He moved his shoulders, trying without success to ease the new tension. “I’d come in for a few hours to catch up on reading reports.”

She nodded. She’d been at work on a sunny Saturday, too.

“One of my detectives was taking a report from Drew. He’d given his name, and then I heard him talking about Melissa and Brianna. It clicked that he had to be your brother-in-law and that it was your sister who was missing.” He grimaced. “I was curious.”

Jane studied him, long enough for it to become uncomfortable. Her pupils dilated slightly, as if...he didn’t know. Finally she gave a funny little nod. “Thank you.”

Which meant she knew he’d stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong because he was worried about her. “If it had been the other way around...”

“You’re right.” Now she didn’t want to meet his eyes. “I’d have been curious, too.”

There was a bump in his chest, as if his heart had maybe skipped a beat. Was she implying...? Something else he didn’t know.